Forza Motorsport 4

I had some doubts about this game considering how great Forza 3 was. Basically what was there to improve on? Oh looks like my expectations needed adjusting. Forza 4 looks and feels brilliant. Graphics and sound have improved noticeably which helps the immersion factor considerably. When you see the immaculate graphics and hear beautiful roaring sounds, it just pulls you in. I read that Turn 10 had contractors that work in Hollywood to help them with the lighting etc. You can see the effects.

I must have had ten hours gameplay so far but I only scratched the surface. My career stats say I only finished 1.8% of my career so far. There is Rivals section as well and the club aspect. Famous Top Gear show endorsement was a brilliant move, it puts a smile in your face racing through Top Gear track or listening to Jeremy Clarkson colourful comments.

So far I'm extremely happy with this game and look forward to play it for many many more hours with mates from Gaming Fro Fun.

Gears of War 3 - Epic Finale

I had the great pleasure of playing this game for many hours in the past month and let me tell you - this game rocks. It has got quantity and quality.

Campaign can be played as per usual story mode or with an arcade twist. Basically play through the same levels but with different feel to it. The arcade mode adds scoring, where for each action you get a score and score is calculated after every chapter. I think arcade mode puts more emphasis on action side of the game whiles the standard campaign put more emphasis on the story. Both these you can play on your own or with as many as 3 other player - Ka-chow!

Co-op mode does not end with these two story modes. You can choose to play with up to 4 friends in the Horde mode, where you fight wave after wave of locust horde, or Beast mode where you get to play as locust annihilating gears, again 5 player co-op game. Both these modes are great fun.

The you have the versus mode where you can choose to play private or public matches (standard and ranked). As most versus games are now server hosted, the quality of these games has improved significantly compared to Gears 2.

Well done Epic - top mark from me: 10/10

Can't believe I took so long to come back

Well I've done it again, stopped blogging for months. Shame really because one can just write one or two lines if too busy, but I guess Twitter was there for that.

Hope to synch back in form now. Got a lot new games coming. Currently playing Gears of War 3 a lot and I can't get enough of it. I've started a tournament in GFF, can't wait fo rthe first session this Saturday!

Gears of War 3 guide

Found this guide accidentally today. Looks to be just to my liking, not too detailed, not too brief. The only dowside is they want $9.99 if I want to mark as I get collectables but I can do without that, for now anyway.
 
http://www.gamerguides.com/guides/gears-of-war-3/table-contents/

Addictive Speed Run in DiRT 3

So far I think these challenge game modes, like speed runs, are the only improvement form Dirt 2. I spent some two hours last night to nail this speed run for a platinum medal. You can make uploads direct to youtube but they are fairly low quality, take ages to prepare and upload and the maximum clip length is 30 seconds. I had  to upload two clips to youtube for this one, download them from youtube and put the together in Windows Movie Maker before uploading it as one clip. I definitely need to get a capture device.

Portal 2

I've recently had a 5 days Portal 2 marathon. I rented the game from Blockbuster as spur of a moment and had to concentrate on it to try and finish it.

If you have played the original Portal game from Orange Box or Portal arcade game then Portal 2 will not be a novelty for you. If my memory serves me right it looks very similar and the gameplay is more or less the same. Even though I have not played Portal for couple of years, when I started Portal 2 I was a bit disappointed they have not changed it a bit more. But as I started solving the puzzles I realised that there are plenty new types of puzzles so the game started to bewitch me as the original game did.

In total there are two sets of maps, one for single player and the other for co-op game mode.

The single player maps can be played during the story mode or with developer commentary, which is a great touch. Story mode is great. You get brilliant puzzles to solve using all sorts of chamber features (won't give any details as it might spoil it for someone), the story is interesting and Glados is as funny as it was. You can also choose to play the game with developer commentary which is the same as the story mode except you can't save and you get comment bubbles here and there to open the developer's commentary.

Co-op section does not run as a story but you do have to play it sequentially the first time you play. You get one learning chapter and then another 5 chapters with different types of puzzles to solve. The puzzles are absolutely brilliant, simply work of a genius. You can play co-op on split screen or via xbox live. If you play over xbox live you can play with friends or any random dude. You do get a reminder from developers that the game is best played with friends and there is a reason for that. Communicating during puzzle solving is great part of the gameplay. Not just in working out how to get form a to b, but the banter around it is priceless. You can create traps for each other and laugh your head off with comments from Glados and the different ways you can die.

I had to take it back but will definitely buy the game to finish the remaining 2 co-op chapters.

9/10 from me

Gears of War 3 trailer

Probably seen it but in case you haven't here it is:



I was a bit disappointed, I thought they'd show us a bit more story details. We knew Adam Fenix


was going to have a part (from the teaser they showed before). So unless I'm missing something there isn't anything knew on this trailer.